A Very Happy Birthday

I thought I would share with you how I celebrated my 27th birthday. This was actually my 2nd birthday to spend in the Philippines, since last year our trip also fell over my birthday!

On my actual birthday I spent all morning cooking with my friend, Adela. She taught me how to make traditional Filipino birthday food. First we made sticky rice, which is a mixture of rice, brown sugar, and coconut milk. We could have just bought a can of coconut milk, but instead we squeezed it fresh! We poured hot water over freshly shredded coconut and then squeezed the shredded coconut to make milk. It was so much fun to squeeze and make it from scratch!

We also made pancit, which is rice noodles, meat, and veggies stir fried into it! Yummy! We invited our neighbors up to eat lunch, because one of them, Andrew shares the same birthday, so we were able to celebrate together!

Yesterday, my wonderful husband planned a pool party for Andrew and I! Quite a few kids of all ages came to enjoy a couple hours of swimming and the traditional birthday cake! After the party Dan and I hurried off to watch a play called The Matchmaker which was a production put on by Faith Academy. An excellent, first class performance!



Our freshly squeezed coconut and the milk it created!



A view of our fun pool party! This pool is on the center where we live, so we often enjoy swimming in it to cool off from our days in the heat! It is so refreshing!